The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to phase error and correction. Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Generally, a wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices. Base stations may communicate with communication devices on downstream and upstream links Each base station has a coverage range, which may be referred to as the coverage area of the cell. A transmitter (e.g., a base station) and a receiver (e.g., a communication device) may include, respectively, components for signal transmissions and signal reception. For example, the transmitter and receiver may each include one or more oscillators. These oscillators may not be in sync with one another, and may have inherent imperfections. As a result, phase noise may be introduced into the received signal. This noise may create difficulties for the receiver to correctly determine the phase for symbols transmitted to the receiver. Currently, phase error is determined by performing hard decisions on the received symbols themselves. However, due to the noisy conditions at the receiver, this hard decision may regularly be incorrect. Thus, the phase error and phase correction generated from this hard decision are also incorrect. Erroneous hard decisions result in the performance degradation of various components in the receiver.